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Articles in Category: Mind and Machine

Diet and Lifestyle

5 Essentials for the Paleo Kitchen

on Saturday, 13 April 2013. Posted in Paleo & Ketogenic, Mind and Machine

Every Paleo kitchen needs the following items to give an extra helping hand.

1. Crock Pot

How else are you going to create that lovely batch of bone broth to heal your gut? Crock Pots are definitely making a come back in the kitchen especially with those eating Paleo. We consume large chunks of meat and slurp up bone broths but you can cook other items in there as well.

I personally own the Hamilton Beach 6-Quart.  It's programmable and comes with a meat thermometer (which I rarely use)

2. Cast Iron Skillet

A well seasoned Iron Skillet is probably the most essential item used in the kitchen, at least for me. I cook pretty much everything in it. I tossed out my various teflon, calphalon, whatever other kind of -on coated cooking materials in favor of stainless and cast iron. It takes a little skill and care to get used to cooking on cast iron but is well worth it for the flavor imbued and the avoidance of harmful chemicals flaking off into your food. You also get the added bonus of adding iron to your meals.

I prefer Lodge as that was what we always used in my time as a Boy Scout.  I now own and use for everything, the Deep 10.25" variety.

The Medical Magic Show

on Tuesday, 05 March 2013. Posted in General Health, Mind and Machine

My opinion of the Medical Industry

The Medical Magic Show

It depresses me to see the sick and obese constantly. I work in the Mental Health and Substance Abuse field and I see on a daily basis the results of our medical industry in one way or another. Yes, a lot of these people are on illegal substances, have lost their way in a quagmire of marketed goods, or they're so poor or ostracized they exist in a sub-sect of society that is looked down upon by everyone. The only help they're given is a dose of medication to cover their symptoms. I also see perfectly healthy people being beaten down by the lies propagated by advertisements and marketing that is doled out by authoritarian figures who supposedly have our best interests at heart. That couldn't be further from the truth.

I have personally watched how the medical industry can destroy a person. My girlfriend has had ailments that suggest a metabolic disorder yet doctors would only diagnose as something as vague as Fibromyalgia, allergies, or chronic fatigue syndrome. She was given pain relievers and anti-depressants continually upping the dose as her symptoms increased upon taking these medications. Side effects were augmented with the latest and greatest medications that were meant to help and all they did were prolong and perhaps mask the underlying symptoms. Do doctors do this intentionally or is it just misguided information handed down to them? Or worse, is it due to the kickbacks that they receive for trying out designer drugs on their patients? This seems to be unethical but it happens on a daily basis and I have been witness to this drug dispensing without warrant. How often have you visited a doctor and the length of the visit is roughly 5-10 minutes before the doctor is shoving you out the door with a handful of sample medications or a prescription that the insurance company gets to decide on how much it wants to pay.

As my research goes and the more I witness, the medical industry is not out there to help anyone. It is there to keep you in a medical cycle of medications. It WANTS to keep you as a patient for as long as possible. We're given drugs that have more side effects than what it is meant to help and, more often than not, these side effects are lifelong debilitating disorders, never to be truly fixed. The mere statement of calling the medical field an industry should be a clear indicator that something is wrong. The medical profession needs to look clearly at itself in the mirror, remembering the Hippocratic oath.

Diet. The Dirty word

on Wednesday, 20 February 2013. Posted in General Health, Mind and Machine

The term diet has been spun into something that it is not.  More often than not if one says 'Diet' it is seen as a temporary or fad like thing in order to lose weight or augment your lifestyle for temporary gain.  Diet in its definition means the continual eating habits of a creature.  So, we know cows mostly eat grass and that is their diet.  Predators are carnivores and subsist mostly on meats.  Somehow a diet has become misconstrued over the years as something else.  It is now a marketable term and not true to its meaning.  So, with trepidation, I often say I am on the Paleo diet and it is misunderstood as something akin to the Atkins diet for meat eaters or that I only consume what cavemen ate which is wholly untrue and often leads to crooked eyebrows or being told I don't need to be on a diet, that eating red meats will kill me, or some other myth perpetuated by misguided information.  This mental programming of the word diet along with the 'diets' in question is part of the problem with health and nutrition.  Diet is part of your lifestyle and what you can handle ingesting on a continual basis and what your body should be fed habitually.

We as humans don't really have a solidified diet per se according to nature.  There are things which we should and should not eat but we have a very robust system that allows us both meats and vegetables and some in-between items.  There are a lot of things that we cannot adapt to though and should be removed from the body altogether in order to achieve optimal energy levels and ease digestion.  We can eat and pass pennies but that doesn't mean it is good for our body and you may or may not have adverse affects from doing so.   The same can be said for gluten, legumes, dairy, sugar etc. all of which can have adverse affects, hidden or visible.

Paleo - How to Shop

on Wednesday, 23 January 2013. Posted in Getting Started, Mind and Machine

There's a bit of a stigma with Paleo in that it is expensive to eat this way. My retort is: “What is more costly, medical bills or a better diet?”. Once you give up on boxed foods and start buying whole foods you should begin to see a difference in meal costs for the better. You can easily put together a meal for four for about 15 dollars which is a lot cheaper than eating out. Speaking of eating out, you'll likely reduce that considerably since it is somewhat difficult to source a restaurant that is conducive to your eating habits.

The initial costs can be a bit off-putting and a lot of times I recommend starting slow in replacing items. Eat down what you may have stocked up as you build up new supplies, or if you have long term storage, give it away or keep it stashed for emergencies.  I went the cold turkey route and tossed out everything in favor of my new lifestyle.  The choice is yours if you can afford it or if your health can hold out for a little while longer as you make the transition.  Some people are in dire straights with obesity or metabolic issues and need to shock the system as far as I am concerned.  If the temptation is there then they'll never achieve their goal.

Role of Fat or Roll of Fat?

on Tuesday, 22 January 2013. Posted in Paleo & Ketogenic, Mind and Machine

There's a certain misconception around that fat equals fat on the body.  The notion, upon closer examination, is illogical ,however; I was certainly under this spell for the longest time of my life.  Eating fat does not equal fat.  Growing up in the 80's everything was low fat and Jazzercise or aerobics with colorful leg warmers was the way to fitness godliness.  As I have learned, both couldn't be further from the truth.

Further hang ups tend be with the types of fats.  Everyone knows that we need more Omega 3's and less Omega 6's but at the same time we're told to use "healthy" fats and oils like vegetable oil which is loaded with polyunsaturated fatty acids and Omega 6.  So, if you take away nothing else from this then understand that you need to dispose of all those corn, canola, peanut, soy, and grape seed oils.  Yeah I thought grape seed was ok too for a while but it's no better than the others.  Canola is used so heavily now it is disconcerting.  Canola was originally designed as an industrial lubricant and even a lot of olive oils sneak in a portion of canola to round out the rest of the bottle and cut the cost.  Canola is, as I understand, a product of Rapeseed and not exactly good for our systems.  Another terrible "fat" is the alternative butters.  Margarine is one molecule away from being plastic not to mention all the other so-called butters which are nothing more than chemical compounds made to taste like butter.  Thanks, but I'll take my chances with something natural and something my body knows how to process. So, toss them out and don't look back.  If you're serious about reversing your health, start here.

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